I'm a Libertarian living in Humboldt County, CA. I've lived here in Eureka since 1973 and joined the Libertarian Party in 1992. This blog will mostly focus on local political issues, but I may stray into state and national issues as well, when I can't help myself. Please post your comments by clicking on the "comments" link at the bottom of each post. Although I do moderate comments, you need not be a registered user to post them.

Friday, May 26, 2006

Campaign Finance Reports In

Looks like the candidates in the District Attorney's race have turned in their latest finance reports. I was sorry to see Worth Dikeman reach to the dark side and accept $1000 from what must be his sister, who lives in Vallejo.But, not to be outdone, Gallegos' has taken at least four contributions from out of the area: Irvine, CA, New Mexico, El Cerrito and Berkeley. Gallegos also outdid Dikeman in fundraising pulling in $81,000 to Dikeman's $79,000. That's a closer spread than I'd expected.One thing seems clear; If you believe in local control of elections, Dikeman is the clear choice as he depends less on out of the area financing for his campaign. If you believe that big money corrupts politics, the obvious choice is Dikeman, as he raised less money. Sure, he came close to Gallegos, but less money is less money.If you support local control and clean elections, how could you vote for anybody but Dikeman?

Ironically, Dikeman would have benefitted from Measure T - especially the union exemption.

Not that it would make much of a difference ultimately, considering that some brainchild running Dikeman's campaign has him issuing press conferences to explain how Gallegos is being "political" with the Cheri Moore investigation by not commenting on it. Plenty of irony to go around.

The notion that the existing membership of established environmental groups -- collectively over 10 million members strong -- is moot, or that the ongoing policy work of these groups is a waste of time, is preposterous, and distracting from the real work ahead.

And Carl Pope of the Sierra Club:

I believe that their paper, because it is unfair, unclear and divisive, has actually muddied the water and made the task of figuring out a comprehensive and effective set of strategies more difficult...these conclusions are so fundamentally flawed that they may distract us from the real work at hand...Their case is not only flimsy, it is internally contradictory and misleading...This is rubbish...by failing to offer their own ideas for scrutiny they rendered their report nihilistic -- able to destroy but not create.

Wierdness from Dikeman's FAQ's: He says he won't take a stand on Measure T because he doesn't want to weigh in on local initiatives, but just before that he says he is against the police review initiatives. How is this consistent?

Easy - the latter has to do with the DA's job - Measure T doesn't other than being totally unenforceable.

As for the Cheri Moore position - Gallegos was the one that made it a campaign issue. Once that happened, he absolutely has to hand it over to the AG. He could not ethically even conduct a grand jury on it.

That's not true. Measure T specifically gives the DA the right to sue businesses which run afoul of its badly-written rules. Dikeman is ducking the issue when he should make it clear how he would enforce something so unenforcable.

Well, fill in the blanks for me. The question was asked of the candidates at the Vets Hall forum and Dikeman asserts that the investigation is closed. Gallegos says that while the police investigation may be closed, his is not. Dikeman wigs out and pretty much accuses Gallegos of playing politics by not simply accepting the police investigation at face value. Gallegos points out that the coroner has not issued a report (to this date actually) and repeats that he cannot comment on the investigation and criticizes Dikeman for undermining his investigation by announcing that the investigation is over without checking with him. Gallegos later requests a civilian review of the investigation findings. Then yesterday, Dikeman holds a press conference in which he admits that he knows nothing about the investigation since he's been busy campaigning for the past few weeks, but that he should turn over the investigation that he previously considered closed to the attorney general's office.

So what am I missing? How did Gallegos politicize the issue? Seems to me it's Dikeman who keeps bringing it up.

I could be wrong. I've been wrong before. But I suspect that Gallegos will collect between 55 and 60 percent of the vote. Maybe there is an undercurrent of dissatisfaction out there that I haven't felt, but this isn't the same county that re-elected Terry Farmer all those years.

no, not exactly, and that was disclosed in the article, yo're just not quoting it... the higher amounts were from auctions where bidding went above the $500. So, what, you want to limit her from being able to hold the same kind of fundraisers that paul does? at least she doesn't have people outside handing out cash

but the idea of %500 limits is stupid in the first place with no basis in reality, no consideration for the ever increasing cost of advertising, signs, all the campaign expenses. it's a dumb idea, and so is measure t

when its all said and done you don't want anyone who might be conservative or disagree with you to be able to raise money but all the libby dems will be able to raise as much as they want from whoever they want

The Marks for Supervisor campaign finance report was reported in timely or "legal" fashion as directed by the FPPC. Bonnie Neely and Nancy Fleeming reported a day late by law. Someone would have to file a charge with the FPPC of their tardiness. Nancy says she was minutes late. Neely's camp claims they mailed the report. If they did, it has to be certified one day mail by law. I am not going to be petty, but they should abide by state laws and their own contribution limits. I have refused all corporate dollars. And we are working on a budget just under $12,000. We are focused on knocking on 10,000 doors. Shouldn't that be enough for a County Supervisor postion? What I could do with over $100,000 raised by my opponents in our community. We could help save the Samoa Peninsula Fire District from the Redevelopment process. Keep Teachers in our district employeed. Hire more law enforcement. Help Social Services reach out to Drug addicts on the streets. But no, they just flood the airways with rhetoric.

10:01 wrote: "the higher amounts were from auctions where bidding went above the $500".

Thanks for the heads up, 9:24, I read that in the news but apparently the connection didn't register.

Interesting point brought up: Should auctions receipts be included in the $500 limits? Hard to say. I suppose that's why I tend to not favor campaign fincance proposals in general; Too much nitpicking over one thing or another. We'll drive each other nuts going after each other's finances.

Well, Richard Marks appears to be learning the hard way about the true nature of the dark side of the force around here. Abandoned by the Democrat Central Committee droids even though he's the only Dem in the race, snubbed by the Measure T nutjobs even after he consent to endorse their silly initiative, even union reps are caving into elitist interests and Marks is the only union guy running for any office around here! Maybe Marks should join a third party and be done with these creeps for good. You want to recruit him Fred?

10:03 The only limits are self imposed. The $500 limit is a dumb idea, no matter how you look at it. It limits her ability to compete, to get her message out, it eliminates the freedom of choice on the part of donors, and, in a world where the media is essential for getting one's message out it limits a candidate's ability to communicate, thus limiting the free flow of information and ideas and speech.

The system works, and these attempts to monkey with it do more damage than good.

10:43am:There are people on the left who are scared that Nancy will win the election, and that I am splitting the vote. I am disturbed that a fellow Democrat would actively lobby against a true fellow Democrat. The local Democrats do injustice to there own, that is why Bush and Arnold are in office. It starts at the local level people! I am ashamed to admit that I was a campaign volunteer who collected signatures to put Mike Thompson on the ballot for Congress. Bonnie did not help Mike at the grassroots level. Sad how and why this could happen. I have been a Democrat over 30 years and I vote! Good points made and sad commentary 10:43. Politics makes strange bedfellows.Richard Marks (Look for a surprise June 6th!)

Check out Mark's web page, any sign of Eureka Greens support in his endorsements or his news pages have been removed. I wonder if the Eureka Greens would still endorse him if they knew how embarassed he was all of the sudden.

I don't think it matters in supervisor elections if you "split the vote." If nobody gets over 50 percent, it goes to a run-off, correct? And if somebody does get more than 50%, it doesn't matter if you split the vote.

There's no excuse for voting for Neely if you would prefer to vote for Marks. You can always vote for Neely after you've voted against her.

I expect Neely is changing her tune because she sees the writing on the wall with regard to evolving demographics and recent election results. If she's thinking about running for a higher office, say assembly or state senate, she'll probably switch parties. This isn't the same district that elected Riggs a decade ago.

Re Fleming's pledge - did she say outright that she wasn't including auction donations? I've never reviewed the pledge, but really, that seems much more pertinent than whether the donations fit into some other standard.

I wonder, if all the teachers in his school tried to tell the public that teh principal/superintendent was bad, and they gave reason after reason after reason, and people started quitting, and they didn't have enough teachers to run the classrooms, and the school was losing grants that paid for the reading teacher and the special ed teacher and the school buses, and the guy didn't even come to teachers meetings, or school board meetings, and refused to advocate for the teachers to the School Board...

Would he support that principal/superintendent?

Would all of the staff's complaints make it to the paper? Maybe if it fianlly reached a crescendo, or when it came time to negotiate the contract, the teachers would feel strongly enough to come forward, would shed their inhibitions, shyness and politeness, nad put themselves out there to try to right a grievous wrong... would he blame them for coming forward?

What kind of craven human being is Patrick Riggs that he would ignore the voices of the people who work with gallegos and who are most directly affected by his mismanagement?

Please, anonymous and Bit, ease up. You're both getting really nasty.I agree with anonymous's school administrator analogy, but I'm not convinced that Riggs is a "hate monger". I am saddened that he and the Central Committee abandoned Richard Marks, whose Demo credentials seem unassailable.However, I don't see any evil intent or conspiracies at work here.